SUN STIGMATAS

Okay. Done. With next book's new title, that is, which is (drum roll):

SUN STIGMATAS

Coz when sun splits (stigmata) what still comes out is light. Light comes out of light. Flesh comes out of flesh, versus traditional stigmata where blood (and bloody guts) comes out of fleshy stigmata. You split and yet you remain whole.

So, for Part I, prose poem blocks rupture, but only to present new poems. For Part II which will be about a dozen prose pieces, there's darkness in the raw material but what results is still "light" -- either poetry or visual art or both.

Entonces, the cover image will be a detail from a sculpture/installation work by by Emmy Catedral, one of the subjects of the art essays: a yellow orb (sun) created from strips of yellow legal pad --

Detail from “Marginalia” (2005) by Emmy Catedral

What's a strip from a yellow pad? A sunray! What does one do on a legal pad? Why, Grasshopper, one writes! The sun splits and yet, with Poetry's (and poetic) redemption, art replaces tragedy as the result. The art of Light...

May you have a light-filled day...!

This has been a public service announcement from the headquarters of Lucidity Poetics, Inc.

A PEEK INTO HOW MOI GETS HER BOOKS PUBLISHED

Love my publisher Marsh Hawk Press! I send them pretty thick manuscripts--see BRICK and SON OF A BRICK. Their fearlessness in the face of BIG POETRY (what commercial consideration?) inspired me, too, as a publisher -- see the two-volume bricks I've put out by Allen Bramhall and John Bloomberg-Rissman, as examples. (I could go on longer here as to how the poetry contest system and academic-assignment markets have artifically determined limits on poetry book length, but why bore us all...?)

Anyway, as ever, I recently sent Marsh Hawk a relatively thick manuscript for my next book. What does my savvy in-house editor say? GO BIGGER! I'm offering a reductive summary of what was a larger, more complicated discussion -- but the effect is (partly) I'm going longer again! Technically, one could say I just switched from a verse collection to a multi-genre collection. Heart Moi the multi-genre!

And one of the side-effects is reprinting some prose I've written on the visual arts ... which leads me to a morning email from an artist who expressed thanks for having first written on her. She's 31 now. Apparently, she was only 23 when I first wrote on her work and so it was quite meaningful for her. I learn that, just 8 years later ... but who's counting the years? Not Moi. I only count my white hairs.

Speaking of white hairs, I've had this idea for a long time -- that I keep all the white hairs I pluck out of moi purty head (yes, I know I'm not supposed to do it but sometimes it's like an addictive itch, like popping pimples). Then I use the white hairs to "draw" -- to make marks against, lessee, a white page so it can join the "white on white" genre, or against colored or black paper for a more dramatic impact. I could title it "Aging" or "Mortality" et al. But that titling would be too obvious, not complicated enough ...

... which is what my beloved in-house editor (whose name is no secret but I don't want to mention here because my blog jokes don't do justice to his intellect) said about my manuscript. Great poems but I might want to deepen its context/concept, include some "dialogic relations" (he's in academia; he talks this way sincerely).

I riposted, "Y'all just want more bricks by Moi. I know it!"

Unlike my shallow, jokey responses, he continued to go at length at how I need to stop futzing around and get back to widening the margins that currently propose the limits of poetry. I don't share my initial reply of BUT I JUST WANNA SIT ON MOI BUTT AND LAZILY FEEL IT GET LARGER! I mean, isn't it enough that the poems are good? (Thank you to the poet-editors who are currently gobbling them up for their journals -- I have 22 more new poems not yet published so shoot me an email if you want some.)

I'm also trying to save the world on another continent.

But, okay, you want more blather from Moi? On that, I can deliver asleep (and have to many an unlucky recipient). So, the manuscript that I thought I'd finished and finished titling? You know, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: STIGMATA SCULPTURES ...? That is now just Part I (a thick Part I) of my next book. Which means I have to go through another rumination of a new title for the updated, THICKER version. My first cuts at the title -- which I'm not totally satisfied it but share for the blog file are:

POST STIGMATA
PRAYING PAST STIGMATA

I know. Gotta keep ruminating.

And it's the least I can do to be part of Marsh Hawk Press -- a group of savvy, experienced poets who've been around enough to know that poetry's scope is not just radiant but can irradiate. And that'd be some ineffective radiation if you don't, ambition-wise, GO BIG.

Thank you, Marsh Hawk Press.

MORE NOTES FROM THE STUDIO

I've never written poems that got away from me so fast. Usually, when I begin a poem I am in the poem (or want to be in the poem) and then am in its space for a while especially if I edit the poem. But with these poems, as soon as the first drafts were written they flew away from me. Which is to say, as I edited them -- and I was surprised by how much editing they required (I've been a first draft, last draft type pf poet for the past few years) -- I was outside their space. I was looking at the poems with distance between me and the poems.

And it's all good. Because, I suppose, that's what sculptures are and I consider these poem-sculptures. That is, with (most) sculptures, you can walk around them and see them 360 degrees.

Which is also to say, these poems are their own worlds. And that's fabulous. With these poems, I got out of their way to let them have their say.

I'm getting there ... let's see what there is.

NOTES FROM THE STUDIO

Intent matters. When a sculptor chisels out a sculpture of, say, a woman's face by listening to the lines/waves/seams of the stone block -- instead of determining at the outset to sculpt a woman's face -- the result (expression) will be different.

I've forgotten how many layers of reproductions I've been writing to come to the reproductions that will appear in REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG. To reproduce a memory, let alone a lost memory -- that's surely one way to lose/forget the personal "I"...

... in the same way the sculptor loses himself in stone by being stone.

Sometimes, to write poems, you need to listen to stone -- also a metaphor for silence. Listening to silence -- I wouldn't wish for this to become a lost art ...

MOI AND THE GOTAN PROJECT

When I was in New York this past July, I had a brief (very brief) foray into Argentinian tango and so had my first immersion into the music of THE GOTAN PROJECT. While not the first time I heard their music, it was my first immersion and as I listened to their sounds, it felt very familiar. And I wondered at its familiarity ... but didn't ponder it much until this last couple of days while editing my forthcoming book. Immersing myself into the manuscript viz close-edits made me realize that I was attempting (hopefully achieved) in this new book a sensibility as I felt in the music of THE GOTAN PROJECT.

I guess I can suggest then, if you want a preview of my 2014 poetry collection, one way is to check out THE GOTAN PROJECT on YouTube.



My book, by the way, has a new (moithinks, finally FINAL) title:

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: STIGMATA SCULPTURES

I tangoed mucho with developing the title -- guess it had to be that way for these poems...

STIGMATA'S POEMS

As I said in prior post, Achilles and I are currently editing the manuscript for MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES. So, I thought I'd share the book's Preface:

Stigmata’s Poems

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
—Michelangelo


What if the block of stone was a block of prose?

These poems were written-sculpted out of the poems of similar titles in the first two sections of my 1998 prose poem collection, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. I did not sculpt poems from Reproduction’s third and last section as those poems were previously wrought from sculptor Anne Truitt’s three ravishing and inspirational memoirs. While sculpting the poems, I was also inspired by an observation:


“Art: … The prayer that leads to stigmata …”
—Eric Gamalinda

And here are possibilities for ye olde Author's Photo below for what would be my--que horror!--25th print poetry collection:

No make-up, but still Avatared out viz Iphone. Or, nakedly transparent but "truth" only as defined by poetry.

THE DAWG EVEN EDITS!

Achilles is helping me edit the manuscript for SUN STIGMATAS (formerly MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES), my next book which will be released next year. The new book contains poems "sculpted" out of the prose poems in my 1998 book, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE (lying atop manuscript). So far, Achilles has been supportive of the new poems. Woof!

STATUS CHECK

9:04 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013. TERMINE! Finished the last of 57 poem-sculptures that will make up moi 2014 book, MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG.

'Twas more complicated and difficult than I anticipated. Am relieved the first draft is finished.

Synchronistic now that whilst sculpting, I was reading during coffee breaks Daniel Silva's novel-series about an Israeli spy who also is a master restorer of paintings. To be mired in a world of radical politics requiring extreme sanctions and yet never losing sight of the singular integrities of Art. All useful scaffolding as I chiseled away at prose blocks.

Two more manuscripts. Then, shall the Poetry Muse release me? I wonder, since I would not be unhappy to be so released. Ironic. I've so desired to plumb Poetry's mysteries and fell deep with so much joy and appetite. Now, I wouldn't mind yet another way. Poetry's light is blinding, but it is dark light.

**

Only a (King Lear's) Fool would ever want to be a poet.

The problem is that being a poet is not about what one wants. It's not (just) about desire. It's also about helplessness...

POETS & ARTISTS!

Didi Menendez consistently does a great job with Poets & Artists, and the Summer issue is out!  I'm delighted at the company that surrounds my poem "The Empty Flagpole."

If you click on above link, you will end up at the issue -- it may seem like you have to purchase to read the whole issue but if you click on "Preview" you can see the whole thing online. Of course, a purchase for poets and artists is also always a good thing!

WHILE I WAS CLEARING THE CAT LITTER,

an idea for a new poetry book surfaced. This is why I clean the cat litter. Anyhoo: this new poetry book (is about and) will be entitled KING LEAR'S FOOL. Excited am Moi!

Speaking of books, 'twas a pleasure to have a poetry discussion rise with the son this morning. I happened to have my manuscript-in-progress -- MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES -- on the counter and he asked about it. And, among other things, we discussed the evolution of its title per

Sculptures of Reproductions

Sculpting Reproductions of Emptiness

Sculptures of Reproductions of Emptiness

Reproductions of the reproductions of the empty

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES

to finally its final (I think) title:

MICHEL’S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES

I explained how this book is based on sculpting verses out of the prose poem blocks in my 1998 book, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE. And that I'd found it unexpectedly complicated to generate a title that hewed to the new collection's concepcual underpinnings that might be evident in its two epigraphs:

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
—Michelangelo (1475-1564)

What if the block of stone was a block of prose?
—Eileen R. Tabios

I said that the reference to "Michel" referred to "Michelangelo" but that since a reproduction is not quite the thing itself, I shortened the name to approximate-due-to-reproduction the name. I said, "It's just like when you take a photograph. Your photograph is not the same thing as what you capture in your camera."

That made my photographer-son's eyes light up in understanding. What a blessing to see that light. Such a different nature of conversation than what he encapsulates in his Facebook post where he claims that when I talk about being a poet, I usually only talk about making books.  I look forward to more poetry discussions with moi son!

But here's the thing, when I was clearing the cat litter this morning and an idea for a new poetry project came up, I didn't think of writing a new poem entitled "King Lear's Fool." I thought specifically of a new BOOK with that title. That says something about Moi as a poet -- I'll leave it to others, though, to articulate that matter...